The Wicked and Wonderful Miss Merlin

ANNE HERRIES

This book is the copyright of Linda Sole published 2012

All rights reserved.  It is illegal to reproduce this book in any form without the permission of the publisher or author.

I thank Jane Odiwe for permission to use her design as my cover for this series.

The characters in this book are entirely fictional and bear no resemblance to any person living or dead, except where a historical reference is used.

Samantha Merlin looked at herself in the mirror and sighed.  Her reflection showed a woman of spirit with bright bold eyes that were a deep azure when she was thoughtful, long hair that sparkled like threads of gold, which had been drawn back into a tight knot, and lips the colour of soft rose.  It was not the image she wished to see reflected.

Would a pair of spectacles help?  She wondered if the glasses she had purchased with plain glass, perched on the end of her pert nose, would make her look older and wiser – or would she still look far too young and irresponsible?

Samantha Merlin was a good teacher; she knew she was the right person to have charge of her school.  The other teachers she employed were all perfectly respectable and her girls received a proper education that fitted them for the world that awaited them, but she liked to give them more.

She tried with her stories to lift their eyes from the ground or the mundane things in life, to give them imagination and set their spirits soaring.  Of course not all girls were suitable material and she chose her special girls carefully, but somehow Eleanor Brough’s lost lonely look had got beneath her skin and she’d taken her in with a group of older girls, who were steadier.  She’d hoped that it would bring the girl out of herself, and it had.  Unfortunately, she had taken Samantha’s words too literally.  She’d spoken of letting their spirit take flight, of lifting themselves and reaching out for what they wanted…

Unknown to Samantha, Eleanor had wanted a young man by the name of Toby Brockleton.  He was the son of the local squire and Eleanor had apparently met him after the girls had been to church one Sunday morning.  She’d lingered behind the others, ostensibly to tie a shoelace – or so Samantha had been told since.  In actual fact she had begun her secret assignation that day and it had continued for six months, until a few weeks before her seventeenth birthday, when the lovestruck pair had fled together, leaving a tearful, ill-spelled and blotted note for Samantha.

The realisation that the girl had fled to Scotland with a young man had hit her like a bucket of ice cold water.  Lord Brough was said to be a stern guardian of his only sister and she had found him rather cold when they met briefly.  He’d told her to expect Eleanor, given her a draft on his bank for the whole first year and left without disclosing any personal details either of himself or his sister.

It was from Eleanor that she learned her parents had died a few months earlier, in a terrible carriage accident.  Her brother Robert had been away serving in the army and had been forced to give up a life he loved to look after the estate and her.  Apparently, there had been debts but Robert had by some miracle paid them and Eleanor was sure her brother was rich.

‘He says I may have a season when I finish school,’ she confided once she began to lose her shyness.  ‘I am to marry a man of good character but not to worry about his fortune for Robert will give me ten thousand pounds when I marry – so he must be rich, mustn’t he?’

‘Yes, perhaps,’ Samantha said.  ‘Perhaps he has put the money aside for you from the estate because he cares for your happiness?’

‘I do not think Robert cares for anyone or anything but soldiering,’ his sister said.  ‘When he was younger he used to tease me and I thought he cared for me then – but something happened.  All the joy went out of his life and then he went away to join the army.’

‘Do you know what happened to change him?’

‘No.  I was in the schoolroom, for I had a governess then and I seldom saw my parents or my brother.  Once a day I was taken down to Mama and then I did not see her again…though I think sometimes she kissed me when I was in bed and almost asleep.’

Samantha listened feeling angry.  Many fine ladies thought it right to see their child just once a day until they were out of the schoolroom and it was an iniquitous way to treat their own flesh and blood.  Leaving them to the care of a governess, many of whom punished ruthlessly with a cane, never giving the youngsters any reason to laugh or enjoy their childhood.  It was one of the reasons she had started her school, because she wanted to repair broken hearts and crushed spirits – and she believed with some of her pupils she’d done just that.  Merry and Annabel were two of her successes, both now happily married and in love.

She had failed with Eleanor Brough, or looked at another way, perhaps she had succeeded too well.  The girl had cast off her crippling shyness, cast off her reserve to the extent where she was willing to run off to be married.

And her brother was going to blame her head teacher.  Of course he would.  She expected it and she had prepared herself for his arrival.  Looking at the clock, she drew a deep breath.  He would be here at any moment and he would be angry.  She must go downstairs to receive him in her parlour.

Lord Robert Brough swore as one of his horses pulled up lame.  He had been held up by a problem with one of his tenants before he left home and now this – and he had particularly wanted to be on time.  Miss Samantha Merlin was going to wish she had never been born by the time he’d finished with her.

‘It’s his left right hock, sir,’ the groom said.  ‘I’ve suspected a splint might be forming for a while but I put a poultice on last night and the swelling went down.  I should have said something, my lord.’

Robert got down from his chaise.  He went to one of his favourite horses and ran a hand over Thruster’s hind leg.  It had swollen and would take some time to heal.  Frowning, he bit back the furious words that rose to his tongue.  Jenkins was a good man as a rule and perhaps he’d made things worse by pushing the horses in his haste.

‘He will have to be led to the nearest hostelry.  You must stay with him.  Release him and go back to the inn we passed earlier.  ‘I shall ride Thunderer and leave the chaise here with my baggage.  Send someone to fetch it immediately.’

             
‘Yes, sir.  I apologise, my lord.’

             
‘Apology accepted.’  He did not wish to dismiss the man for one mistake.  ‘I shall take my small bag with me, but nothing else.’

             
It was a risk to leave the chaise and his trunk unattended, for there were beggars and thieves roaming the roads, though he normally found most folk were honest, but what else could he do?

Looking about him, he saw a young lad chewing a blade of grass.

‘Here to me, boy!’

‘Me, sor?’ the lad asked in a thick accent that made his words almost unintelligible.  ‘Ain’t dun nuffin’, sor…’

‘I am not accusing you of anything, lad.  If I give you a shilling will you stay here and guard my chaise until they come from the inn to fetch it?’

The lad’s face brightened, his eyes taking on an acquisitive look. ‘Ought ter be at work, sor – but fer two silver shillin’ I’ll stay and mind yer bits, milor.’

‘You cheeky little…’ Robert laughed, amused by the lad’s enterprise.  ‘I’ll give you your two shillings – and if everything is as it should be when I return, I’ll give you a job too.  Leave your name and direction with my man and I’ll send for you.  You can learn to be a groom in my stables, if you behave.’

‘Ain’t nobody gonna get near yer fings, sor.  Jed Turnbill says it on his ‘onour, sor.’

‘See that they don’t.’ Robert hid his smile.

Jenkins had been freeing the horses from their shafts.  Robert mounted the horse that was still hale, admonished his groom to take good care of Thruster and set off at a smart pace down the road.

‘Cor, he’s a right un’, ain’t he?’ the lad said.  ‘It takes summat ter ride a carriage horse wiv no saddle.’

‘His lordship had his favourite horse shot from under him in battle.  He got up and caught a bolting horse and was back in the thick of it before you could sneeze – if you was wanting to,’ Jenkins said.  ‘Give us your direction then lad.  You won’t find a better master – he’s tough but fair…’

‘Ah, I reckon…’

Unaware of the speculation or burning ambition to become a groom he had left gathering in one young breast, Robert leaned forward over his horse’s neck.  He had to grip hard with his knees, because he had neither saddle nor stirrups and the horse he was riding was a mettlesome brute.  It was not completely unused to being ridden for the grooms sometimes amused themselves by riding bareback in the yard, and as a lad Robert had practised balancing in a standing position to ride round the yard or out in the meadow.  His mother had seen him once and shrieked at him to be careful, which had resulted in him jerking and falling.  He’d bruised himself but fortunately nothing was broken and it had not stopped him from trying out all kinds of tricks with the horses.

He was glad of it now for Thruster knew he was being ridden by a master and did not try to throw him off.  The delay caused by his horse going lame might soon be caught up providing he was not…cursing, Robert saw the carriage lying across the road ahead of him.  It had clearly met with an unfortunate accident, its leading pole broken and the occupants standing dejectedly by the side of the road.

He could of course have ridden by on the grass verge, but one of the dejected persons was a young lady of a similar age to Eleanor and the other was clearly a companion, who looked to be at the end of her tether.

‘I don’t know what to do, miss, and that’s a fact,’ the governess said in a loud voice.  ‘Indeed, I think there is nothing to be done – until the groom can fetch help.’

‘But poor Timms has broken his arm in the accident,’ the young lady replied, ‘he cannot walk all the way – it is more than five miles, and so it must be one of us…’

‘Indeed, you will not go, miss, for it would be most improper and I’m sure I cannot walk so far for my ankle was twisted as I jumped from the carriage.’

Robert did not hear exactly what the ladies were saying but he caught a few words and realised that they were in some trouble.  Halting, his horse, he looked down at them.

‘You have had an accident – has anyone gone for help?’

‘Poor Timms has broken his arm,’ the young lady said.  ‘Papa would have sent Jack with us but he was needed elsewhere and he thought we must be safe enough with Timms because Miss Merlin’s school was not more than twenty miles – which is why I agreed to go, because I can go home at the weekends if I wish…’